(Release date: July 22, 2002)
The second "movie" was a horrifying retread of the same tired jokes that I didn't laugh at in the first place. I suppose Myers figured that the first one made money, so the second one should be a retread... only! True fans of the series will tell you that I am a moron and that I just didn't get it! Of course they used the same jokes over and over! Of Course it's funny to explain why the audience should laugh at a joke that isn't funny! It's supposed to be bad! Brother Kneumsi doesn't get it! Sure... if that makes you feel better! Intentional or not, Austin Powers in Goldmember is the same one-joke movie as the first two and amounts to absolutely nothing more than an insulting vanity piece for the formerly promising Mike Myers! This diaper begins with a goof ball cameo-ridden introduction that is part spoof and part scope into the newly found ego of Mike Myers. This takes the form of a movie within a movie featuring cameos by Tom Cruise, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito, Steven Spielberg and even Quincy Jones! Myers is so impressed with himself for snagging these a-listers to slum in his toilet that he actually throws his arms around them, turns to the screen and introduces them. Oh, you rule Mike! What bet did these people lose? The strange thing is how this sequence actually works against the rest of the film seeing as how it's actually less annoying than the remainder of this log! The rest of the lackluster "plot" contains another journey back in time to save the world again against ridiculous odds and more bad jokes than a convention of rejects from Last Comic Standing! This time Dr. Evil and his crew, still including Number Two, Mini-Me, Scott Evil and some others I stopped giving a crap about team up with a villain named Goldmember (whose penis was burned off by molten gold, hence the name... how funny) to either destroy the world or embezzle money from the Myers equivalent to the UN. It's true that this is the same movie all over again, to the point at which the actors even seem burned out on their own same jokes! Still they repeat them ad nauseum much like the first two films did to the point of self-parody. They still boldly tell a bad joke and then tirelessly explain why the joke is funny to them. On the rare occasion that the joke is actually funny they continue to belabor the joke until it stops being funny. You can actually gauge the joke going from funny to unfunny to maybe a little funny to tired to old to migraine headache. Primarily, however the "comedy" revolves around the potty, the gross, or groin pain. Not to mention bad special effects. It seems that Myers and the rest of the self-satisfied lackeys of shame got together and said "Say, wouldn't it be funny if we made things look cheap... on purpose? That way it's funny and we save money. We can't lose!" Then they decide to really shake it up by doing the exact same jokes as the first two movies again, but this time slightly different! That way, we, the idiot audience, will expect the same joke, but be pleasantly surprised by the fact that it was worded slightly different, or even (drumroll) said by a different character! The one liners are based on knowledge of about a three month period in pop culture, meaning that, in the future, this movie won't be funny to new audiences regardless of their blood alcohol content. An uncomfortabe example of this is Austin Powers' battle with Britney Spears! He beats her in the same way he beat the robots in the first movie and then quips "Oops! I did it again, Bay-bee!" No... no you didn't! Myers plays the lion's share of the parts again, but not a one of them is distanced from the others by even a hair's breadth. They all seem like Myers feeling that he is the best thing since pirated MP3s and he wants everyone else to think so too! The shame here is that Myers is not a bad actor, he just doesn't give a crap about writing or acting anything of quality. If it sells tickets to 13.5 year olds then, YEAH BAY-BEE! Often Myers will play a part, making tons of bad jokes, while Myers in another part (most often Goldmember himself) quips about exactly why Myers thinks his own jokes are funny! Thanks! Can you watch some sitcoms with me and explain them? I'm a retarded hamster! Mike Myers is a model of Self-Satisfaction... worse than a Mary Francis Crosby Christmas Special! The entire time the movie seems to be screaming out "Don't you nitpick us... we didn't even try! It's supposed to suck! Don't you get it?" I get that Myers' continual popularity is as painful to watch as Robert Wuhl getting to make out with Shannon Elizabeth on Arli$$, and even less deserving! I actually met Verne Troyer in Anaheim one day and he's a great guy, and not a bad actor. However, he is so undignified as Mini-Me here that you feel sorry for him. Same as the very talented Seth Green. Seth is best known for his role as Scott Evil and that is really a shame! He deserves better! Beyoncé Knowles is incredibly hot in the face, hair and body as Foxxy Cleopatra! She's pretty decent with what she's given to work with, but it isn't much. For the most part she seems to simply react to Myers' ego with wide-eyed surprise that she's in a major Hollywood film! I hope to see her again in an actual role one day... but her outfits are perfect! Two incredibly hot Japanese Twins named "Fook Mi" and "Fook Yu" (Diane Mizota and Carrie Ann Inaba respectively) also help make a tiny piece of this film Tolerable! Among the interminable musical interludes is a catchy, yet ultimately over-idiotic spoof of gangster rap videos which samples Hard Knock Life from Annie! It's cute for a few seconds but falls flat. Is it funny to see Fred Savage in a small part as a henchman with an enormous Mole? It could be but ends up being another excuse for repetition (and an inferior version of Neil Patrick Harris' role in Undercover Brother)! Is it cool that the Movie within a Movie picks back up when Myers runs out of plot and allows for one more cameo in the form of John Travolta? Well... let me ask you that in a slightly different way... "Do you like it when people tickle you after unnecessary surgery?" True, this is a real dog, but I'm going to have to give this one Two Stars! I know, that's over-generous, and there are episodes of Three's a Crowd that are better and more original, but it's not quite the pepper spray in the open wound that the first two were. Oh, it sucks, and you should avoid it like a hypodermic on the beach, but if you're distracted and doing something else this is inoffensive enough to not infuriate you as you send Duke Nukem in to spank Boo-Radley! It won't make you laugh, but it won't make you want to carve numbers into your chest either. Now if you'll excuse me I am going to go rent Wayne's World 2 to remind me that Mike Myers was once funny... a little! |
